After initially being told that the Lansing Potters Guilds evening classes were full yet again (they seem to fill up instantly!), I received an email yesterday that a space opened up for the class starting next week and it is mine if I want it!

I can't wait to get back to working with clay, and it will be interesting to see how a different studio works.

My wife and I have been meeting with Petr on Skype to share/teach Mandarin with him. The process has been rich, humorous and connective. My wife just recently threw her first gong fu teapot. It's about a 100ml, medium thickness, and has a very nice balance.

Petr gave us some very helpful assistance/hints/guidance about joining the spout/arm to the body of the pot and how to do the filter. This is the first time my wife did a sasame style filter and it is her first side-handle kyusu (she has made three other large teapots in the past). I did the finishing on the pot with a sponge and some ceramic tools while wet and then used some sandpaper on the dried body, following that with some light sponge work again. This is our first attempt and we like it very much. It has yet to be bisque fired and I still need to clean up the filter a bit more. We plan to glaze the pot inside and out. We are both excited for the next pieces. She threw some nice tea cups and other small gongfu accessories as well. Our hope is to design complete tea sets wherein she creates the ceramics and I assist and I make all the wooden accessories to accompany each set (tea pick, tea scoop, trays, etc.).